Mickeyduck's machines

[mickeyduck]

Right then. Engine lid liner. A.k.a. heat shield / eye shield (hide the eye-sore underside of the lid).

Just to recap... once upon a time (when I bought the car from Scott 5 or 6 years ago) the underside of the lid looked like this:

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B00TIFUEL.

Problem was the fans were no longer wired up because they sucked the life out of the battery, and the intercooler fans under the boot had started squealing like a pig. So one of the first things I did after buying the car was remove that pretty red custom shroud and relocate the fans to the underside of the intercooler in the boot (see a post years ago).

That worked out great. Except that the engine bay was visibly scarred by the ugly underside of the lid when open. Not exactly show car standard anymore eh.



Spent years running different ideas around my brain and finally looked into obtaining some perforated aluminium sheet, only to find that NZ outfits all wanted to sting me upwards of $500 for a bit big enough. WTF...??? I could buy 10 full size sheets from China for less than that.

Thankfully one of our fine Club's stalwarts, ever ready to help fellow Club members if able, decided to send me the remains of a special kind of hospital bed via courier all the way from Welly. I totally love the way he reinforced it before carefully packaging it inside good gnarly cardboard.

Over the last week I've been working on this thing and have finally got it done. Well, unless it decides to rattle in which case I'll just have to figure out how to stop it, but I think it'll be SWeet. Here's the how...

As perforated aluminium can be classified as a precious metal, I first had a go at making a cardboard template. Proved a little more tricky than you'd imagine. AW's make great work benches if the wing is removed by the way...

In the end, because the aluminium has holes in it I decided to lay it on top of the engine lid and "trace" it by looking straight through it.

First I had to cut off those reinforcing box section sides. Out came a couple of tools...

And off came the sides.

I traced the lid's underside using a marker and cut the basic shape to near-enough using tin snips. I then marked out where the latch-catch holes would be and using a small chisel and hammer I cut the holes out. That allowed me to bolt it up gently to the same place each time I refit it to checked my progress. After removing the marker pen lines I used tape to trace to the exact line that I wanted to follow. I then used an 80 grit sanding disk on a drill to carefully carve the edges down and finished the edges with sandpaper.

I marked out and cut the rest of the holes that take bolts into steel, and then carefully drilled out the holes in the fibreglass, and tapped M6 x 1 threads into them.

Then I marked up and cut those holes in the ali too. 4 in the middle, 2 on the sides and 2 for the bump stops. I fitted the hinges, traced around them and cut those shapes out using the chisel too.

Once all that was SWeet I pondered how to polish the aluminium. Can't really use polish as it'd just disappear into all the holes. So I grabbed a hand sander (cheap old-school thing that's just a flat plate with foam on one side and a handle on the other) and used 400 and 600 grit paper to mow the ali down to a decent shine. Good enough to dazzle you if the sun hits it anyway.

The hinges and catch were looking a bit tired so I repainted them, using a rake so they could be turned to suit the sun for a fast dry.

Looking through the ali's holes I just saw red. Literally. It made the ugly stuff visible eh. So I masked up the steel bits and blacked out the fi-glass underside.

Next it was a case of getting the hinges and latch just right. Had to carve out the bolt hole on the right-hand side of the latch to drop it down seeing as the ali had spaced the catch up a bit. The bump stops needed shaving down for the same reason. And then I discovered that even with the bolts all done up, if I tapped the aluminium it rattled. Nooooo....!!! So off it came and I fitted so rubber draft strip to the fibre glass to stop it. Seems ok but driving might be another story. We'll see. Nothing is insurmountable.

I used some hi-temp silicone on the threads of the cap screws that go into the fibreglass so they don't need to be crazy tight and hopefully don't fall out.

Things were starting to look a bit tidier than before I started...

I like the way you can spot the stuff through the top of the lid too.

Finally I fitted the gas strut and there you go. I like it. Simple, light, will reflect 50% of the radiant heat away from the fibreglass but still allow the hot air to escape through the vents. And it don't look too bad either.

Thanks Colin a.k.a. *84vvt
Mint...!
All going well I'll see you at Manfield mate!

[*84vvt]

Shore looks the part beats having the cooling fans any day.
Yes will be at Manfield

[mknz]

Now it looks like a computer case from the 00s and your run survivor stickers won't help airflow

No excuse for not going down in November then

[Swampy]

The phat fanless funda!

[mickeyduck]

Thanks guys.

Now it looks like a computer case from the 00s

You mean like an old G5 or Intel Mac?
I guess I have spent almost 20 years looking at those things. Using a 10 year old example to write this right now (pictured).
Maybe I should pinch the Apple logo off one and fit it under the hood?

Colin I'm looking forward to catching up with you at Manfield mate.

In fact I'd really like to overtake you at least once, though as you'll be driving an AW and I'll be driving an SW I'm not counting any screaming chickens.

Here's a couple of interesting things for ya.

Isaac just took his AW to a dyno and got 132hp at the wheels (whp). Fresh from the factory they were rated at 145hp at the crank (brake horse power, bhp). Most cars lose about 15% by the time you get a reading at the wheels, due to gearbox and drive-train "parasitic loss" but Isaac's AW shows a loss of not even 10%.

So our little rebuild in the shed can't have been too bad an effort eh? Certainly has more pull than my AW, you can feel it when driving. Anyway we're both pretty darn happy about that outcome. AWesome.

Another interesting thing I bumped into was that apparently an SW20 turbo with slightly less power than mine holds the land speed record for its class, being 2 litre turbo GT road car. I've always thought mine should be able to crack 200mph and now I know it probably could. I would sooooo love to do that in my little red beastie, and there's a straight flat bit of tarmac not far from here that would likely be just the ticket... To a crushed car, ha ha...

Anyway it makes me proud to own an MR2. Fastest 2 litre road car on the planet. Foo.
And frankly any road car that can crack 200mph / 320kmh is pretty darn special.
Check this out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_MR2

In 1992, Dennis Aase, a member of Toyota's American factory team, became the first driver to achieve over 320 km/h (200 mph) in the car's class as he took his SW20 to a 339.686 km/h (211.071 mph) average. The car posted 326.697 and 352.068 km/h (203 and 218.765 mph) on the two opposing runs required for the record.

The car, that previously saw action at the Firestone Firehawk Endurance Championship by P. J. Jones, ran with a boost of 16 psi (1.1 bar) with changes to the intake and exhaust systems and the cam timing, output a maximum of 494 PS; 363 kW (487 hp). The car ran with its stock body minus wing mirrors and wiper blades. His attempt at improving his record the following year was thwarted by poor weather.

As of July 2015, the G/BGT record (Class G, Blown Grand Touring Sports or 2 Liter production turbo-charged GT) still stands.

Nice.

[*84vvt]

https://www.mr2oc.com/61-3sgte-turbo/46 ... miles.html

Bob Norwood had a go with a SW20 as well but used a De stroked 20Valve as the power plant
Not a bad read http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/206 ... ood-racing

[*84vvt]

Dynos are relative to each other but can differ a fair bit between makes
132 Hp out of a stock 1600cc motor is a good number
you will have a lot more toque then a NA car with your roots blower lower in the rev range but will lose out higher up due to the restriction of said blower. study the toque /power graph on the print out (if you got one ) and see were the best shift point is for your gear box you might find shifting @ 5500 to 6000/ 6500 rpm will make the car 'Faster" than shifting at 7500 red line.
Mine might have fuel cut @ 8500 but its all revs after 7000rpm.

[mickeyduck]

Yesterday afternoon I replaced the springs and shocks in the rear suspension of the SW. Removal and rebuild of the BC Gold BR coilovers.

I seem to have torn the big tendon that goes down the left side of my neck while torquing the hub bolts back up so today I'm a bit stuffed, can't turn my head and it hurts like a bastard. Which is putting the brakes on things a bit here. Grrr...

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Anyway it was good to finally get it done, though I did find one thing that rather annoyed me.

The old springs were 200mm long. When I ordered the new ones (brought in especially from the USA as they are an odd spring rate) I was told the correct part for SW coilovers was listed as 180mm long, so that's what we got.

When I fitted them I discovered it was impossible to set them up with the preload specified by BC. They say to nip them up with your fingers, then tighten them another 4mm, being the thickness of one of their spanners. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kr476UftKw

With the old 200mm springs this method leaves you with about 16mm of thread above the adjuster ring.

With the new shorter 180mm springs there is no thread spare once you finger tighten them, meaning you would have lost 4mm of thread altogether by the time they were adjusted as specified.

I didn't like that idea very much so decided to set them to 2mm preload which hopefully will be ok. A bit annoyed though.

Old shock showing the adjuster ring position left 16mm thread once preload was set at specified 4mm:

New shock showing adjuster ring at end of thread when merely finger tight, with no preload:

Anyway the suspension is basically sorted now, just need to see where the ride height actually is once it's back on its feet, and get the wheel alignment checked, though it should be very close to where it was thanks to the lasers.

Old and new shocks, showing slightly different numbers, though I don't know the meaning. The damping rate looks the same though, if it's the 0.2kg part of the labels.

Done:

Next mission will be to take a look at the replacement RF Brembo brake calliper and bleed the brakes. I want to do that before the car comes down off the blocks of course, and it will be nice if I can get it done in time to take it to the tyre shop next Saturday morning. But the way my neck is at the mo, we'll just have to see...

[*84vvt]

If your after a Spacer to make up the difference in spring high between the old and new shocks let me know the ID OD and thickness and I will see whats lying around at work

[85AW20v]

Do you think one or two of them just the right size might fall off the front of a lathe there Colin?

[*84vvt]

something like that
the red disc was the last thing to fall off the lathe this weekend

[mickeyduck]

If your after a Spacer to make up the difference in spring high between the old and new shocks let me know the ID OD and thickness and I will see whats lying around at work

Thank you Colin that's an AWesome offer and I may well take you up on it yet. A bit reluctant to go leaning on the power bar still at the mo tho, with my neck a bit wrecked. Very nice idea though, cheers.

OK brakes. So I scored a RF Brembo to replace the upside-down RF leftie. In answer to them that suggested to just drill holes to rejig the bleed nipples, I'd like to point out one small issue with repurposing one of these Brembos to the wrong side of the car... The pots on the leading edge of the rotor are by design smaller than the pots on the trailing edge of the rotor. This is intended to give an even pressure on the pad and thereby maximise braking efficiency. If you use one of these calipers upside down on the wrong side of the car it will therefore make a little less braking force than the one on the other side of the car (if the other one is the right way up). Case in point this car has always locked up the left front when braking hard even at 200kmh, causing the thing to try to spin. Anyway aside from being able to bleed the thing easily that's the other reason I want an actual right caliper on the right side.

Left caliper, you can see the lower (leading) pot is smaller:

And below, the right caliper, again the smaller pot is leading and the larger pot is trailing:

Anyway the bleed nipples on the "new" caliper seemed awful tight so I hit them with heat and gave them a donk, but half the thread came out with one of them regardless. Grrr... Idiots that over-tighten things. So one of the holes now has only half the thread. Might be enough to work ok but I still don't like it cos the last thing I need is a bleed nipple to go "pop" when I happen to be hitting the brakes hard at high speed. And the faster you're going the more pressure you are likely to be applying, and the bigger the mess will be if the brakes do decide to go "pop".

So I've scored a set of stainless nipples from Hel (which aptly enough is here in West Auckland)

And I've ordered an M10 x 1.0 bottom tap and an M10 x 1.0 thread repair kit from Carbide in Palmy. https://www.carbidenz.co.nz Should turn up in time for this weekend.

If I do helicoil that thread I'm going to have to be really careful as I don't want to damage the seat and I don't want to end up askew either else it won't seal.

One dust boot is damaged too so I am tempted to try to swap the pots from the one that's come off the car into this one before fitting it. Don't have a new seal kit at this stage...

Front pads are Ferodo 4447 at the mo. Seem to do the job...

Oh yeah bought an 8mm hex-key CrMo impact bit too in case I have to split the caliper. Anyway we'll see what happens this weekend...

[mickeyduck]

So yeah a stripped thread has "put the brakes on" the brakes biz, at least until the weekend.

Seeing as I've had to "take a breather" I thought I'd look at the air cleaner.

The thing has been built into the car in such a way as to provide totally cool air and is utterly separated from the engine bay. But it's a bit of a pig to get at to change.

First you have to remove the cup from behind the engine lid lever. Philips.

Then you can remove the inner panel. Interesting to see that 4 out of 5 clips are missing. Makes it easier to remove I guess...

Then you need to remove the trim strip that's above the side vent. Requires a long 10mm tube socket for the two nuts, one inside the car behind the safety belt retractor, the other inside the rear guard. And a Philips for the wee screw on the guard's lip. Then I used a trim removal tool with a rubber block to pop the strip off the body as it has 2 push-pins in the middle.

There's also one more 10mm nut to undo low down inside the guard before you can pop the vent off.

Here's a pic looking up into the vent hole from the floor. You can see the HKS mushroom air cleaner, green "dry" filter removed. This pic also shows where those bolt holes and push-pin holes are.

Here's a pic of the 3-layer "dry" green filter element sitting in its cover. It basically fell apart after I removed it, kinda perished. Just as well I took a look eh.

So it seems there's nobody in NZ with a filter element for sale. If there is, I've yet to find it.

So I'm thinking maybe I sacrifice a tiny bit of the "cold air" effect and fit a K&N pod filter in the engine bay right near the vent. Would last a lot longer and be a hell of a lot easier to get at. And still be in fresh cool air when the car is moving. It would also allow the vent to send a heap of nice cold air into the engine bay while driving, cos it sure does get hellishing hot in there! I can keep all the parts and put it back as was if it doesn't work out.

Anyway between that and the brakes it's likely to be another interesting weekend.

[GDII]

Interesting about the caliper. I knew these sorts used differents sizes but I never clicked when you said it was the wrong one. That's a very big oversight by the original builder. Dangerous.

Those air filters are known to collapse and get eaten by the engine. A pod filter jammed into that vent will do fine as cold air come in from the 'vent' and from under the car. The OEM setup isn't much different.

[Mr-Paulio]

Not of the same quality I'm sure. But just in case this could be an option for you?
NZ$ 1.38 25%OFF | CNSPEED Universal 250mm Air Filter Foam 3Layer Filter Sponge Element Suitable Mushroom Air Filter Cleaner Red Blue Yellow Green
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/BX6BFVRJV

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